Green Eyed Monster
by ruth baulding
Summary: The Jedi High Council appoints a new member... and a friendship begins to unravel.


**Green Eyed Monster**

* * *

You think I don't know.

And that would be your first mistake, my very young Padawan. Ex-Padawan. What I don't know about you would, I'm sure, fill a small holo-volume in the Archives; but what you don't know about _me _ would, I am confident, occupy the compressed infinity of a small holocron. I've kept it that way.

For your own good.

And one of the things you _don't _ know about me is what I do or do not know. And yes, Anakin, that includes _this_ sort of thing. Your _envy_ is written in bold aurebesh letters, a meter high and glaring like a holoboard in the Underlevels. It _cheapens_ the very Force, bedecks its light with the gaudy anger of greed. Because envy is the shadow of greed.

How _many times_ did I teach you that, and yet fail to teach you anything?

And why must you thrust that failure back in my face, here and now?

There is no emotion; there is peace. You will _not_ drag me down with you.

* * *

Let me tell you something you don't know, master.

Something you're too kriffing _Jedi_ to understand. Do you have any idea what a friend is, Obi Wan? Do you, really? Because a _friend_ is someone who bothers to tell you in person. He doesn't let you find out about something this important through the gossip mill. Do you want to know how I got wind of this, master? I heard the rumor from _Snips._ That's right. I had to be told by my own Padawan.

And she was brimming with happiness, and thought that I must be _proud, _ like I give a big kriffing boshuda what the vape happens in the Council chamber. And when I told her what all the Councilors could do with themselves, and each other, she shut up. Fast.

Because she's too young to understand.

Because a Padawan is someone who _talks_ too much when you need to think.

And a friend is someone who can't farking give enough of a damn to _tell_ you himself.

Coward. You know you are, old man.

But maybe the joke's on me, huh? Because maybe what this means, what this _really_ means, is that we aren't friends anymore. You're too high and mighty to consort with "young Skywalker" nowadays. You're too busy issuing edicts and deciding who's going to be slaughtered in which battle for the sake of this peace we're supposed to be so vaping good at preserving. You're one of _them_ now.

So go kriff yourself, too, master.

Or Master Yoda, for all I care – and don't bother telling me about that either, 'cause I'm sure to hear it secondhand anyway.

* * *

You aren't pleased with the new arrangement.

I knew you would not be; and why would I tell you something that would bring only pain? And more to the point: why is it that this should cause suffering? You know whence suffering springs. Attachment. Fear of loss.

I know this all too well, and I have tried to teach it… and again, failed. All I can offer now is the solace of loyalty. You cannot let go; and so, I shall not ask it of you. Nor would I wish to. We are friends. Were I honest, I should call you my brother. And that is a truth, a shining fact in the light of which mere titles and duties fade to inconsequence.

If the Council has asked this of me, and I have accepted – albeit with reservations- that is as insignificant to our friendship as a dusting of morning dew upon immutable stone. I feel this in my heart, and I must have faith that you do as well. I will not even sully that faith with the implicit question, by mentioning this thing which to me is nothing.

You are my brother, Anakin. Nothing changes that. Rank and honor do not scar it; folly and failure do not stain it; death itself would not destroy it. I will not insult you by pretending that this matters between us.

And yet you are still angry, always angry, your emotions always on the move.

You are a difficult man to understand, my friend.

* * *

It should have been me.

You're as powerful as Master Windu, and as wise as Master Yoda. You deserve the honor. But in some ways… in many ways… I'm ahead of you. You've tried to hold me back, all these years. The lectures and the constant criticism – don't think I can't see through that. _See through you, I can._ You're jealous. You have been since the day we met, the day Qui Gon chose _me._ The day the Force chose _me_ to be its One. You didn't like it then, Obi Wan, and you still don't like it. I see you flinch every time the prophecy is mentioned. I see you look at me, the way you did on that docking pad all those years ago.

_The boy is dangerous. They all sense it – why can't you?_

Dangerous to whom? To you? _You're going to be the death of me._ Is that what you think? Is that why you hold me back, keep me down, push me out of the highlight and into shadow?

It's lonely in the shadows, master. You shouldn't have relegated me to the darkness at the margins of your holy nimbus of Light. If I'm dangerous, it's your fault. It's all your fault.

Go tell that to the rest of the Council. Tell them what a monster your former Padawan is. What a miserable failure he is for being better than you are. A greater Jedi. The most powerful Jedi ever born. The one you _tried_ to keep in your shadow all these years. Someday- someday _soon-_ it will be me.

You just wait.

* * *

It should have been you.

You have become a far greater Jedi than I am – than I could ever hope to be. I have trained you – protected you, fought for you, comforted you, guided you, counseled you – since you were a very small boy. If you have not yet attained your full potential, the responsibility is mine. Qui Gon believed in you, Anakin; and I believed in him. And in time, I widened that _attachment_ t o encompass you in your own right, your boundary-stretching, limit-defying, infernally challenging own. I have poured the depths of my own paltry heart and soul into the fulfillment of your promise, only to find that I have not sufficient light to fill such a vessel. I have instead bequeathed to you all my own vices, and some besides. If a chasm now yawns between the man you are and the one you are meant to be, it is nothing more than the abyss of my own shortcomings.

It should have been you. And the fact that this burden settles by default upon my own shoulders is a public shame, a rebuke leveled against me by the Force itself, which spares none of us the revelation of his own faults. This title is one I bear by proxy for one more inherently worthy, one to whose birthright I am an unwilling steward.

My only consolation is that you are so unique, so _chosen, _that one day you will overcome even the handicap of having been my student. And then it will indeed be you. I would step down to make way for you, with a light heart. In time, Anakin.

Just …_be patient._

* * *

You don't understand.

Mom would have understood; she always did. There was nothing in this galaxy she didn't understand, or know how to solve. Except being a slave. That was the only thing she couldn't fix – and I promised to fix it for her. For every slave in this star-forsaken universe, where good people don't get what's fair and right, and bad people go to their graves unpunished. I'm going to fix all of that, for her. And to do that, I need power and influence, the kind you have now and don't have the courage to use.

You don't have the _guts,_ Obi Wan. It's wasted on you. Because you don't feel anything. You don't remember your mother. You don't even know what family is. Look at you now – here you are, standing beside the funeral pyre of somebody you grew up with. What's his name? Reeft something, Jedi Knight. He's dead. Does that mean anything to you, master? Apparently not, because you aren't weeping. There's _nothing_ inside you. You didn't even cry at Qui Gon's funeral. I was there, too, and I should have seen that for what it was. Then, I thought you were strong; now I know better. You are empty.

That's why the Council picked you.

Because you can be filled with other people's ideas, other people's commands. You don't dare _take_ anything for yourself. You don't' dare _defy_ destiny. You aren't _capable_ of love.

I am.

Mom was too. She would have understood. You just… can't.

* * *

You don't understand, Anakin.

For you, every loss is personal. Every death is a tragedy played out in the dark theater of your passions, a microcosm in which every extinction draws a curtain over the totality and demands an ovation of hot retributive action.

There is no death. There is the Force.

I loved Reeft. He was a good friend, and now he is in the Force. Many things, many people whom I have loved are also there- and that is a far safer sanctuary than here, in my flawed heart, where their forms might be transmuted by passion, by attachment, by fear, into mockeries of themselves, shadows signifying only my own need. In the Force, there is truth and light and peace. Reeft is there now, and we remain here. If there are to be tears, they should be wept for those who must continue on into the endless marches of war, fighting the teetering, precarious balance of the universe, even now threatening to slide over into annihilation, into the penumbra of the Dark.

I feel it coming. Do you?

And in that tragedy is a death and a loss so great, so overwhelming, that no injustice, no slavery, no death imaginable can rival its measure.

I could not weep any more, even were it becoming; I am empty. Grief has glutted itself on me and left a scoured out place, a hollow gourd in which Light shines, a fragile beacon of hope.

You should have known Reeft, Anakin. You would have liked him. He was rude, sometimes, on purpose, and he ate a great deal. And he would assuredly have understood.

I wish you could, too. But you don't. Not yet.

* * *

Sometimes I wonder what it would be like to have a father.

One who would stand before the Council and tell them how _worthy_ I am. Who would stand up for me, not for their platitudes. Who would be proud.

I used to think you were my father, master. When I was younger. Before the war. Now I don't know. Palpatine is a bit like that. He at least believes that I deserve to be on the Council, as much as anyone else. As much as you, if not more. He told me this, in so many words. I think – if it were up to him, if he had the authority he truly deserves – he would _appoint_ me to the Council. Then I could serve both the Jedi and him. The Republic. The galaxy.

He's a mentor, a truly good man. He understands power and leadership, he knows what they can be used to do, if only _democracy_ stopped getting in the way. Someday, if he has the chance, he is going to save the Republic form itself. The Jedi haven't managed to do that. They can't. They have the power but they're too weak to use it.

If I were on the Council, I could change that. I could end this war. I could bring peace and justice to the Republic. I could save the Order too…. Maybe.

Palpatine would choose me. The Force chose me.

Only the Jedi Council refuses to see what's written in front of their faces. They think they can _veto_ the Force's decree. But I have a surprise for them: the universe is not a democracy. It is meant to be ruled. By someone wise and powerful, someone who can make people be good.

Like a father, maybe.

* * *

I had a father, once.

I should not have; attachment is forbidden. But I cannot untangle the skein of past history. I resented him, briefly, once long ago. For summing up his estimation of my worthiness in this scant phrase: _he is capable._ Then, I was wounded. Now, having struggled ten long years to be _capable_ of mentoring you, Anakin, I am overwhelmed by the magnificent generosity and faith of this recommendation. If I ever felt myself truly_ capable _ of what fate has laid upon me, I should know my life complete. It is a goal I shall never attain.

You are also charged with a terrible destiny; I know how the weight of it burdens your dreams, your aspirations. And I tell you: if ever one were born _capable, _ Anakin, it is you.

I have told this to Yoda. To Mace. To all the others. I have championed the cause of your _capability_ until I am hoarse, and bereft of words. And yet you confound me at every turn, seeking the counsel of a man who understands power and leadership, but not service.

Do you remember service, Anakin?

I wish you had known Qui Gon longer. He never cared a jot what the Council thought; had they offered him this appointment, he would have declined without hesitation. He saw only service. When he met you, he saw generosity and compassion and love. He saw a boy who was born to _help people._ He saw a kindred spirit.

Perhaps he saw a son.

One who was more than capable.

* * *

When did she learn to take your side?

She is my angel, my own. I don't know how she heard – second hand, the same as I did, I suppose. She probably knew before I did – the Senate rumor mill is a prolific breeder of misinformation and lies, and hurtful truths.

She wants me to convey her congratulations, but you don't need them.

And I don't need your humble self-deprecation, either. You brush aside praise, master, as though it's an irksome pest. Yet it still flocks to you like birds to carrion flesh. You attract other's notice. My _wife's_ notice.

Why is that?

Why would Padme see only your gain, and not my loss? Don't tell me because she's a politician – I'm sick of your stupid politician jokes, all the stupid jokes. This is _not_ funny, master, and you know it. This is deadly serious.

If she's happy for you when I'm not happy, then you've turned her against me.

I swear by all the Sith hells, Obi Wan, if I _ever_ find out that you've done that…. I will kill you both. With my own hands.

Kriff! I hate this feeling. I need her. I need to be with her now. I'm going to. And to _hell_ with the Code.

* * *

Bail Organa did not offer congratulations. He offered his condolences.

I might have smiled for the first time in a month. He, at least, has a wry grasp on reality; before I met him, I thought that Padme was the only sentient being in the galaxy capable of being a politician and a genuinely good person at the same time. Now the sum total of such impossible prodigies is two.

I wish, Anakin, that you had such a friend. Padme could be this to you, if only… you were not _attached._ If I had taught you better to discipline your emotions, she might be a stalwart advocate and support, a source of wise counsel… and she is not even a Jedi. As it stands, I fear this is impossible. Dangerous. And that leaves you with me.

And I am neither she, nor he, nor Palpatine, nor Qui Gon, nor your mother, nor any of the others whom you might have heeded, might have _learned _ from. And now, I fear this trifling matter of the Council seat has severed what tenuous bond we ever shared.

Fear. There is no fear. There is no passion. There is serenity.

And yet I still fear. Only you can do this to me, Anakin.

I did not ask for this on my own behalf. The Council asked it of me. What would you have me do?

* * *

Do you know what I could _do?_

If it had been me. If _I _ were the master. If _I_ were on the Council?

I would change things; I would change the Code. I would change the whole Order. There would be… love. And families. And passion. And no more _restrictions. _ No more _forbidden._

There would be freedom, and truth, no more half-truths and hypocrisies, and lies, Obi Wan..

And if there was not truth, then there would be _consequences._ I would stop evil before it happened. I would _obliterate_ injustice, make wrongdoers eat their own vile excrement, make the slave-owners _pay._

There wouldn't be any fear, not anymore. Because power means security. I would take away all fear and suffering.

I would be able to stop people from _dying,_ even. Because I am the most powerful Jedi ever. I am, even if the Council can't see it.

Even if you can't see it, master. Compared to me, your vaunted powers are _weak_, old man. You are nothing.

If I were on the Council, instead of you, then _I_ would be the master. The Circle would be complete.

And we would have peace.


End file.
